First time in 163 years, Calcutta high court has 8 women judges
Times of India | 12 March 2025
KOLKATA: Three additional judges, including a woman, were sworn in at Calcutta high court on Tuesday, taking the number of female judges to eight, the highest in the HC’s 163-year-old history.
Madras HC and Punjab and Haryana HC have 13 women judges each while Bombay HC has 11. Calcutta HC is fifth on the list while there are some high courts — like Tripura and Uttarakhand — that currently do not have a single woman as judge.
Justice Smita Das De was one of the three additional judges sworn in on Tuesday (along with Justices Reetobroto Kumar Mitra and Om Narayan Rai); she joined Justices Amrita Sinha, Shampa Sarkar, Suvra Ghosh, Ananya Bandyopadhyay, Chaitali Chatterjee (Das), Shampa Dutt (Paul) and Rai Chattopadhyay to take the number of female judges to eight.
Calcutta HC has an approved strength of 72 but has only 46 judges now after Justice Joymalya Bagchi’s elevation to Supreme Court. Justice Manjula Bose and Justice Padma Khastgir became the first women to become Calcutta HC judges in 1977, which was also the United Nations International Year of the Woman.
Justice Das De on Tuesday quoted former SC judge Indira Banerjee, who wanted more women to join the profession and be elevated to benches for proper dispensation of justice.
“Someone hailing from a family of doctors opted to pursue a legal profession,” she said about herself. The initial years were not very smooth and I often toyed with the idea of quitting,” she added, thanking her mother for backing her dreams and helping her stick to her chosen career trajectory. “The bench has a great role to play in shaping the minds of young aspiring lawyers,” she said.
Seniors in the bar agreed with her. “This is a step in the right direction; it helps maintain a balance. It also encourages good lawyers to come forward and work hard,” Incorporated Law Society Paritosh Sinha secretary said.
Having a woman as judge helped in understanding personal problems of women — litigants or lawyers — senior counsel Amrita Pandey felt. “The number of judicial officers and the number of female judges increasing in lower courts and the high courts opens a gateway of opportunities for women in the profession like myself. We see women giving up practice after getting married or having children. This increase in representation will give them hope,” Pandey said.